Accolades Due

As Hollywood geared up to decorate film performers in front of the world at the annual Oscars ceremony, New York City Ballet principal dancers Mira Nadon and Peter Walker laid down a phenomenal “Swan Lake” for a lucky audience of about 2,600 on an unassuming Wednesday night. Were the 20 Oscar acting nominees truly the year’s finest? Some yes, many no. Of the numerous “Swan Lakes” I’ve seen, however, this was one of the very best. With a high degree of difficulty in both dancing and acting, the roles of Odette/Odile and Prince Siegfried are the Hamlets or Lears of the ballet world, and Nadon and Walker’s performances deserved accolades on the level of Oscars. But the dance audience is small, the exposure limited. I am often frustrated by how some art forms are celebrated and rewarded more than others. But then, I am frequently grateful for the immediacy and ephemerality of ballet. To catch a show like this is a precious and unique experience: an NFT instead of an airplane movie stream. And, as a critic, I have the pleasure of sharing that experience and expanding the audience even a tiny bit. Though I do wish that all ballet dancers could get a taste of the beefier paychecks that come with greater societal recognition.

Performance

New York City Ballet: “Swan Lake” by Peter Martins

Place

David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, February 26, 2025

Words

Faye Arthurs

Mira Nadon and Peter Walker in Peter Martins’ “Swan Lake.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Enough digressing on the value of fame and artistry. What made this “Swan Lake” so extraordinary? I’ve been trying to pinpoint the cause, and I think it has to do with two people reaching new heights of technique and acting while apparently not worrying about technique or acting at all. During Nadon’s solo in Act II, it occurred to me that most Odette interpreters appear to hold their breath while trying to hit the balances. I don’t blame them; it would be almost impossible not to do that going into each precariously slow, held position in this dance. But Nadon did not. I’ve never seen anyone approach it as calmly and freely as she did. She did not try to freeze at the peaks of her opening ronds de jambe à la seconde and then recover in tendu; she simply grew her shapes as fully as possible until she ran out of music and then moved on to the next one. The result was that she stayed up longer and made smoother landing transitions than most Odettes.

The same was true of the solo’s numerous attitudes and arabesques. She went for them boldly, but not like she was saying a prayer to hit her center line each time. She used her gaze and epaulement to color each one slightly differently, and then it didn’t seem like some were hit very well and others less so. What a smart way to approach the repetitive Petipa structure. It also didn’t hurt that with each one she displayed her beautiful high extensions and deeply arched back. Neither did Nadon overact or shuffle between concentration and emotion, which is another Odette/Odile trap. So often, ballerinas will look steely and grit their teeth for the challenging balances and turns and then snap back into actress mode for the bourrées and swoons and kneeling pleadings. But Nadon was never not in character: even her mid-show bows were in keeping with the two very different women she was portraying.

Furthermore, she seemed to derive her technique from her characters. Nadon does not have the gyroscopic glide—and the slightly swaybacked pelvis—of uber natural turners (I think of Tiler Peck, Ana Sophia Scheller, Skylar Brandt, and Jennie Somogyi), but she pulled off 32 counts of fouettés with a perfect finish—including sixteen counts of alternating single-doubles—in the Black Swan coda. Nadon also nailed the double stepover finish to her variation. She did not have the nervously determined face of most Odiles rounding that last treacherous corner in the solo; she maintained her devilish confidence throughout. Odile needs to hit that turn to cement her triumph, and so Nadon did. I wondered if her shows (I saw her second outing in the role) went much better than her rehearsals. She strikes me as a true stage animal (someone whose faculties peak in performance)—and a blessedly avian one at that. With her endless limbs, soaring arabesques, and glamourous beauty (she offered her cheek to the spotlight with every step), Nadon is the ideal Swan Queen. Every time she planted herself at the point of a swan wedge, you felt her majesty.

Mira Nadon in Peter Martins’ “Swan Lake.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Nadon has been a remarkable specimen since she arrived on the scene. Though I’d seen a few slightly sloppy moments earlier in the season (including a rough “In the Night”), I expected her to excel in this role. I didn’t expect her to be so technically flawless though (I noticed just one minorly botched en dedans fouetté into arabesque in her opening entrance). She danced the Black Swan section of the ballet in 2022, and she has gotten much stronger since then. She is a revelatory dancer in prime form, what a thrill!

The real surprise of the evening, however, was the transformation of her partner, Peter Walker. From his first crossbow solo, he was unabashedly ardent, unveiling beautifully maximal, lingering arabesques. He continued to bloom as the night went on, showcasing deft partnering and strong, high arabesque landings from the double tours in his Act II solo. By the Black Swan coda he was finishing his pirouettes perched in passé relevé and tossing his hair with gusto. The ballet ends with Siegfried falling to his knees in despair, and he met the moment with heartbreaking, believable passion. I’ve been watching Walker for a long time. I’ve danced with him. Erenow he has been loaded with potential but seemed to inhibit himself from fully unfurling it onstage (though he’s shown glimpses in works by Kyle Abraham and Justin Peck). I have always thought that he had this kind of show in him, but until this night it never seemed like he thought he did. He appeared to finally agree with his casting, and he was sensational.

Nadon and Walker were transcendent, but there were stellar performances down the line. KJ Takahashi was a wonderful jester, demonstrating clean turns and cabrioles while cavorting like a happy goofball. India Bradley, Mary Thomas MacKinnon, and Jules Mabie danced brightly in the the Act I Pas de Trois. (Mabie had made a promising debut in the lead role of “Scotch Symphony” for a school show that morning. He’s another one who will hopefully develop full command of his natural talents over time.) The four little swans were terrific. Ashley Laracey and Aaron Sanz had a soft, yet suave take on the Russian pas de deux. And Olivia Bell and Spartak Hoxha made the quirky Neopolitan dance exciting.

Mira Nadon and New York City Ballet in Peter Martins’ “Swan Lake.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

The last time “Swan Lake” ran, the company had to cast some sparrows as Odette/Odile to fill out the run. This time, the bench of proper, leggy swans was deep, with Unity Phelan and Miriam Miller debuting alongside Nadon. There are a slew of candidates waiting in the wings too (Isabelle LaFreniere, Emily Kikta, Ashley Hod, Christina Clark, Ava Sautter, Savannah Durham, Mary Thomas Mackinnon). Since “Swan Lake” could successfully cycle in the rep for a while with these women, it would behoove City Ballet to fix some glaring issues with the production (with choreography by Peter Martins after Petipa, Ivanov, and Balanchine; sets by Per Kirkeby; and costumes by Per Kirkeby and Kirsten Lund Nielsen). Acts II and IV are great (I love Kirkeby’s fantastical and ominous abstract expressionism here), Acts I and III should be rethought.

Really, the entire production would be tremendously improved just by changing the Act I set, which is jarringly bad. The program claims that it depicts a palace garden, but it looks like a war zone. The murky, sandy palette and stony chunks of ruins do not make sense with the corps’ vibrant costumes, the Queen’s opulent gown and parasol-carrying entourage, or the pomp and grandeur of Tchaikovsky’s music—particularly the Cup Dance. And how the jester could ever fall asleep in that tiny, square, low-backed, wooden highchair of a throne (designed in Minecraft?) is a mystery to me. This is unfortunate, because Martins’s choreography for the villagers in this scene is sweeping and pretty. It is also musically interesting, as when the villagers move in 5-count phrases against the jester’s evenly bouncy tricks.

What trips Martins up, as usual, are the props and accoutrements (see “Sleeping Beauty’s” capes and swords and horror-flick baby doll). The Queen ceremoniously presents her son with a gilded bow that is paraded in on velvet pillows. Siegfried then shoves it behind his teensy chair, where it sticks out awkwardly for much of the act. It’s weird to stow a purse on the floor next to one’s chair in a restaurant; this is not a good spot for this golden gift. The way the jester collects Siegfried and his friends’ chalices at the front of the stage during the end of the Cup Dance is also unnecessarily distracting. (I think props and personal items genuinely baffle Martins. He often sent his glasses flying while demonstrating steps. And I once saw him get in an argument with TSA agents because he didn’t understand why his enormous metal lizard belt buckle had to be screened.)

A redo of the Act III palace scenery would also be helpful, though it is less pressing. The severe wood plank benches are bad, but the swirly marble wall accents make some claim of a kingdom all those princesses think is worth marrying into. Although, the jester costume, not great in orange in Act I, is worse in Act III because the green hue and the addition of three students clad the same way makes for a brief Ninja Turtle invasion. The Act III set and props don’t detract from the narrative and the dancing like the Act I set and props do, at least. Because when you have leads this good, everything else should get out of their way.

Faye Arthurs

Faye Arthurs is a former ballet dancer with New York City Ballet. She chronicled her time as a professional dancer in her blog Thoughts from the Paint. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English from Fordham University. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their sons.

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Accolades Due

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